In southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military has conducted airstrikes against Hamas targets.
The Israeli military said Hamas fired 34 missiles from Lebanon into northern Israel on Thursday.
After the beginning of the attacks, militants in Gaza launched dozens more missiles.
Following two nights of Israeli police assaults on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem earlier this week, tensions are high.
The incursions caused Palestinians to fight within the mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, and outraged the area.
Hamas did not claim responsibility for the largest barrage of missiles launched from Lebanon in 17 years.
However, its commander Ismail Haniyeh, who was in Beirut at the time, stated that the Palestinians would not “cross their arms” in the face of Israeli aggression.
Hours after the Israeli bombardment, two Israeli sisters and their mother were shot and killed near a settlement in the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli officials.
Two or three explosions occurred overnight near the Rashidieh Palestinian refugee camp, five kilometers (three miles) south of the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre.
4 kilometers further south, the Lebanese media also reported attacks on the outskirts of the village of al-Qulaila. It appeared from photographs that a small bridge had been obliterated.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tweeted that its warplanes attacked “Hamas-affiliated terrorist infrastructures” in Lebanon.
“The IDF will not permit the Hamas terrorist organization to operate from within Lebanon, and will hold the government of Lebanon accountable for any aimed fire emanating from its territory,” the statement warned.
Hamas issued a forceful condemnation of “the brazen Zionist aggression against Lebanon in the vicinity of Tyre this morning”
The IDF stated that more than ten Hamas targets were struck in Gaza, including a shaft for a subterranean weapons manufacturing facility, three other weapons workshops, and an underground “terrorist tunnel.”
Israeli media reported that at least 44 rockets were launched from Gaza toward southern Israel during the attacks.
Most were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system or fell in open areas, although one Sderot home was hit.
There were no immediate reports of casualties resulting from the strikes or the rocket discharge overnight.
On Thursday afternoon, a man was injured by shrapnel in northern Israel as a result of rocket fire from Lebanon. According to the Lebanese army, the rockets originated from the outskirts of al-Qulaila and two other frontier villages near Tyre, Maaliya, and Zibqine.
The Israeli military reported that 25 of the 34 missiles were intercepted, while five landed on Israeli soil.
In the northwestern border community of Shlomi, the rockets damaged vehicles and a bank and left craters in the road. In addition, a vehicle was damaged in the village of Fassuta.
The assault occurred just hours after the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which controls a large portion of southern Lebanon, declared that it would support “all measures” taken by Palestinian groups against Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Thursday evening that Israel’s reprisal would “exact a substantial price from our enemies.”
Following the nocturnal attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, an Israeli military spokesman informed reporters that the current operation has concluded.
No one desires an escalation at this time, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht stated. I believe that silence will be met with silence, at least in the coming hours.
On both sides of the border, the memory of the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is still fresh.
A month-long ground war between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon followed a cross-border raid to capture Israeli soldiers.
Analysts say both sides were damaged by that war and don’t want another.
Israel faces the additional danger of recruiting Hezbollah’s Iranian backers.
This time, Israel is believed to be attempting to avoid reigniting the conflict by targeting Hamas-affiliated sites in southern Lebanon rather than punishing Hezbollah for harboring them.
If missile fire killed Israeli people, the response would likely be different.
In the meantime, exchanges with Palestinian militants in Gaza persist.
The next two weeks are exceptionally perilous, as the Jewish Passover holiday and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincide, heightening sensitivity to any incidents near Jerusalem’s holy sites.
